Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, or other content. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of mobile entities, such as, for example, user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a base station via the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). The DL (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the UL (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station.
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) evolves cellular technology based on Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The LTE physical layer (PHY) provides a highly efficient way to convey both data and control information between base stations, such as an evolved Node Bs (eNBs), and mobile entities, such as UEs. UEs may be equipped with multiple transceiver systems for receiving or transmitting data contemporaneously using different carriers, sometime referred to as Carrier Aggregation (CA). Present networks may limit the use of CA for communicating with collocated cells under the control of the same radio network controller (RNC). It may be desirable to overcome these and other limitations of the prior art, and enable a network to realize the benefits of CA in more diverse and varied network configurations or topologies.